This is a question that comes up more than you would think. There could be many different answers, so I’ll try to cover each one below.

Converting your garage into a studio, man cave, or whatever, can be an excellent way to add some living space to your home.

Most of the time when I see someone has done this is when they have a detached garage with a large driveway. The owners already find themselves parking on the driveway most of the time, so figure “Why not.”

Converting your garage can be perfect for you at the time, but as with anything, there are always pros and cons.

Pros of converting your garage

Of course, the biggest advantage when it comes to converting a garage is the added living area.

When you find yourself using your garage only for storage, then might as well spruce it up and use it for more. If you have plenty of room to park on the driveway, then go right ahead.

There are always pros and cons with any home renovation. The biggest pro is that your home always looks way better, and the biggest con is that it always costs too much money.

Renovation pros and cons also apply when it comes to home appraisals.

Renovations give your home the added value, but never as much as you spent on the renovations in the first place.

The question is then, are they actually worth it?

We will touch on that in a second. But first, let’s talk about the problems with them and the ones that contribute the most and least value.

But first, I want to note that this is all written from the perspective of an appraiser. Homes sell higher than the appraised values all the time for many reasons. I wrote this article without the bias of outside factors that influence home values.

We wanted to put this concern into perspective for our home turf of Orange County, California.

To do this, we analyzed 28,512 sales of residential properties in Orange County that sold in 2016 and made two maps based on the average prices for each city.

These 28,512 sales included detached and attached properties in the incorporated cities of Orange County.

From this data, we determined that you are going to have to fork over around a half million just to get a decent detached home, or around half of that if you even want to get a place in Orange County at all.

If you didn’t have a heart attack (Or close the page) after hearing that, then check out the two maps below, and we’ll take a closer look.

Average Prices of Detached Homes in Orange County, California:

(Click to Enlarge)

Average Prices of Attached Homes in Orange County, California:

(Click to Enlarge)

To find the data for these maps, we used the regional MLS, CRMLS. This data was from the past year (2016) in the incorporated cities of Orange County.

That means that if it wasn’t listed on CRMLS in the past year, then it wasn’t included in these maps.